Why Icelanders don't have surnames and how they cope without them (2 photos)

Saying an Icelandic name the first time is not going to work everyone. On the one hand, there are, of course, Björk, Snorri and Heidar, but with the other one - Oulavyur, Adalheydur, Gvudmundur ... how do you like it? Altogether in Iceland has about 4,000 officially approved names.





Others cannot be given - this is monitored by a special a committee that is also empowered to add new variants to the register. A prerequisite is that they must harmoniously fit into Icelandic. At the same time, the Icelanders do not have surnames.

The reason is simple

The reason for this incident is known: for a long time there were so few people that there was simply no need for surnames. After times have changed, but the old traditions remained, and the surnames never have taken root. Instead of them, in everyday life, patronymics or matronyms (roughly speaking, "patronymic by mother"), also for additional identification, you can use a double patronymic - father and grandfather, or take yourself another one or two names.

Icelandic patronymics are formed by adding to the name parent endings "son" for boys and "dottir" for girls, recently in "bur" was added to it - for those who have not decided on the gender. For example: Hollbjorn Olaferson (Hollbjorn, Olafer's son), Kristjana Hinrikdouttir (Kristjana, Hinrik's daughter), Ladvik Hrafnbyur (Ladvik, Hrafn's child).



Women in marriage remain with their patronymics. And if there are still children, then for foreigners it looks like a complete mess: a father with one surname, a mother with another, and a son or daughter with a third.

Icelanders never address each other by name and patronymic, even in business communications they use only names. What introduces foreign partners and participants into some embarrassment meetings at the state level. Indeed, to call respected representative of the Icelandic side simply by name, for example, “Kind day, Snorri!" - it's not like that. Therefore, foreigners diligently added to the names of "Mr." and other "Mrs."